


Revenge

by JeanGraham



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 05:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: A ghost from Illya's past plagues the partners' two-day respite in sunny Honolulu.





	Revenge

Revenge 

* * *

  
by Jean Graham  


Nothing could match the vision of a Hawaiian sunset. That had been   
Napoleon Solo's thought as he and Illya watched the incredibly blue   
water and listened to the laughter and conversation drifting up   
from the beach, carried on the warm breeze.

Closing his eyes, Solo savored the moment of this place that was as   
far removed from New York City as he could possibly get and still   
be standing in the U.S. of A. Their mission in Honolulu had been   
neatly wrapped up, and Mr. Waverly, generous to a fault, had   
granted them two days layover to enjoy the sights.

At the moment, the sights wearing draw-string bikinis were what   
interested Solo. But he'd noted that Illya, even more impassive   
than usual, was unaffected by either the pastoral or the feminine   
scenery. The blond Russian stared sullenly at the water, not   
seeing it, his mind someplace a thousand miles away.

Solo yawned and stretched from his sitting position on the rock   
wall. "Two days," he complained, "is not exactly the length of a   
dream vacation."

Not unexpectedly, Illya hadn't heard him. Solo frowned, surveying   
his partner's rigid stance, the far-away look in his eyes, and the   
wind tossing his hair away from a forehead that was still bandaged   
with a small square of white gauze.

It had been four weeks since Anya Irini Pavalanovka had died at   
U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters in New York City. And three weeks ago, the   
silenced bullet from a sniper's gun had narrowly missed killing   
Illya on the very doorstep of Del Floria's. Solo was certain the   
two incidents were somehow related. But Kuryakin, stubbornly   
tight-lipped, had refused to shed any light on the mystery.   
Knowing better than to press, Solo had stopped asking questions and   
had kept his suspicions to himself, saying nothing to Waverly. But   
he wondered now if that had been wise. Whoever had made the   
attempt on Illya's life in New York might well have been determined   
enough to follow them here.

Loudly, Solo cleared his throat. "Penny for your thoughts," he   
said. "Or has that price gone up along with everything else in   
Hawaii?"

For the first time in many minutes, Illya Kuryakin acknowledged   
that Solo was there. "Shouldn't we be getting back to the hotel?"   
he asked, in a voice that sounded irresolutely bored.

"Now?" Solo asked, disappointed. "I was just beginning to enjoy   
the scenery."

A faint half-smile tugged at one corner of Illya's mouth. "Well,   
nevertheless," he said, and began walking slowly away from the rock   
wall toward a spot down the road where the silver-blue U.N.C.L.E.   
car, acquired from the local office, was sandwiched between parked   
tourist cars in the beach-side lot.

"You've certainly been the life of the party today," Solo jibed,   
following after the Russian agent. "You sure you don't want to   
tell me what this latest dour mood is all about?"

He never had a chance to hear the answer. From somewhere, Solo   
heard the faint _chuff_ of a muffled gunshot. Before he'd had time   
to react and draw the U.N.C.L.E. Special from under his jacket, he   
saw Illya go down on the pavement in front of him. The danger of   
the sniper's gun instantly forgotten, he dropped beside Kuryakin,   
reached to turn him over.

_"IIlya--"_

There was no wound. No blood. What had... ? Solo's eyes caught   
the glint of something metallic then, embedded in the fabric of   
Illya's left coat sleeve. A tranquilizer dart. He grasped the   
blunt silver end of the thing and yanked it cleanly free. But   
Kuryakin was already unconscious.

_This stuff works fast,_ Solo thought, and his own silenced pistol   
still in hand, he turned to squint at the darkening hillside above   
them, feeling suddenly naked on the deserted roadway.

The _chuff_ sound came again.

Solo fired rapidly three times in the direction he thought it had   
come from, but the sudden sharp pain in his left thigh told him the   
sniper's gun had found its second mark. He reached to pull the   
dart out, feeling the lethargy already overtaking him. And as he   
went to his knees on the sand-swept pavement, he stared at the tiny   
needle in his hand and noticed something odd.

_It isn't the same. Not the same dart they shot Illya with. Now _   
_why in the world would they use different...?_

Solo never completed the thought. The hard surface of the blacktop   
had come rushing swiftly up to meet him.

  
* * *

  
Illya Kuryakin opened his eyes to the unexpected sight of stars in   
a clear night sky. He felt moist earth beneath him, and the odor   
of damp grass was heavy in the air. There was an annoying buzz   
inside his head, the effects, he assumed, of the anesthetic. His   
arms and legs felt heavy, like lead weights. He couldn't move   
them.

Above him then, something blocked out the starlight. Something   
shadowy, and man-shaped.

"Good evening, Illya Nickovetch," it said in deep-throated Russian,   
and though Illya could not make out a face, he knew the voice. It   
belonged to a man named Oleg Kugoshev Pavalanovka. Anya's husband.

And the man she had warned Illya about before she had died.

"Are you comfortable?" the voice boomed, still in Russian. "Oh,   
you will be able to move soon. That half of the drug will wear   
off."

"Half?" Illya echoed, not understanding. He turned his head,   
straining to see past the fringes of tall grass around him. What   
had they done to Solo?

"You need not search for the other one," Oleg said, reading the   
thought. "We are many miles from the place you last saw him. At   
the moment, he is doubtless attempting to explain to the local   
police how he came to be sleeping on a public through-fare."

Illya struggled to sit up in the grass, found the effort still   
beyond him, and sank back again. Dimly now, he could make out the   
features of Oleg's face. Older. Heavier. But the same face he   
had known in Kiev many years before.

"What do you want with me, Oleg?" he asked in English.

The response was phrased, persistently, in Russian, as though Oleg   
wanted to prove some point by adhering to the mother tongue. "I   
want nothing," he said. "In fact, I will leave you now. The city   
lies due east of here. If you wish to rejoin your friend, you must   
walk in that direction."

The towering figure vanished from overhead. Moments later, Illya   
heard a car engine roar to life and then recede swiftly into the   
night. Breathing hard, he forced himself to sit up, aware of the   
increased rush of sound in his ears, and the onslaught of a   
splitting headache.

_Half of the drug,_ Oleg had said. What did that mean? What had   
been in that sleep dart?

Unsteadily, he found his feet, and with a sluggish gait that any   
casual observer would have taken for a drunk, began walking in the   
direction Oleg had indicated, toward the distant lights of   
Honolulu.

He began to feel better as he walked. The anesthetic qualities of   
the drug were indeed wearing off. But there was something else...   
Something gnawing at the pit of his stomach and growing, stretching   
tentacles slowly into every part of him. Something else...

_Oleg will try to kill you,_ Anya had insisted from the hospital   
bed in U.N.C.L.E.'s medical section. _I know he will._

And try he had. In New York three weeks ago. And now ...

Illya put the thought out of mind and walked. He had to reach the   
city, find Solo. His hand went automatically in search of his pen   
communicator, but he wasn't surprised to find it missing. The   
U.N.C.L.E. Special was also gone from its close-fitting holster.

By the lights, he judged the city to be some twelve miles ahead of   
him. Several hours on foot. Less, if he could flag down a   
passing car or find a house nearby with a phone. Neither seemed   
likely just now. Oleg had chosen his deathtrap very well.

Shaking his head to dispel the insistent buzzing, Illya walked on.

  
* * *

  
In the Section One office of U.N.C.L.E.'s Hawaiian branch   
headquarters, Napoleon Solo stared wearily at the communications   
console. He'd just come from a long and tedious session with   
H.P.D., and he hadn't slept. It was 2 A.M. in Honolulu. In New   
York, fully one quarter of the Earth's surface away, it was 7 in   
the morning. Alexander Waverly's voice over the speaker sounded   
mildly annoyed.

"I take it then that you've had no response from Mr. Kuryakin's   
communicator."

Solo rubbed his eyes. "No sir. I have to assume it's been taken   
from him. Either that, or..." He didn't finish the sentence.

Waverly didn't respond to the unspoken implication. "For the   
moment," he said, "I will overlook your not informing me of your   
suspicions about the attempt on Mr. Kuryakin's life here in New   
York. But you may be interested to know that our follow-up on Anya   
Pavalanovka indicates she was once, well... shall we say,   
'privately involved' with Mr. Kuryakin."

Solo winced at the euphemism, thankful that his link to New York   
was non-visual, and said, "Yes sir. Is that all?"

"Hardly. The man she ultimately married was a former classmate of   
Mr. Kuryakin's. Oleg Kugoshev Pavalanovka. This man is presently   
in the employ of the KGB, Mr. Solo. And Intelligence placed him in   
New York City as of three weeks ago."

Solo chewed his lip, contemplating. An old flame, a former rival,   
the KGB. Suddenly this whole affair was beginning to make a vague   
sort of sense. "And you think," he said into the microphone pick-   
up, "that for some reason this Oleg wants to kill Illya."

"I think the reasons may not be all that difficult to discern,"   
Waverly said knowingly. "Many men have killed over far less than   
the affections of a woman, after all."

Dubious, Solo answered simply, "Yes sir."

"Whatever the reason may be, Mr. Solo, it is imperative you locate   
Mr. Kuryakin as swiftly as possible. The head of Honolulu's   
Section Four is prepared to work with you in attempting to   
triangulate a fix on his communicator. I suggest you begin   
immediately."

Solo said, "Yes sir," signed off, and rubbed his eyes again. It   
was going to be a long night.

* * *

The lights of Honolulu seemed farther away than ever, and Illya   
Kuryakin was no longer positive if he were even traveling in the   
right direction. The humming in his ears had swelled to a full-   
blown roar, aggravating the headache, and his vision was blurring,   
making navigation on the dark road more and more difficult.

He was certain now that Oleg had mixed another drug with the sleep-   
dart's tranquilizing substance. If the KGB agent had remained true   
to form, it had probably been a slow poison. The same death Oleg   
had chosen for so many of his adversaries in the past.

Illya stopped walking, squinting into the shadows beside the road   
at something he thought he had seen moving there. But there was   
nothing. Only the wind in the trees, and a thousand insects   
trilling over the throb of his headache. He turned back to the   
road -- and saw Anya Irini standing on the blacktop.

He shook his head, stared again, and saw that the figure was still   
there. Arms outstretched, she called to him without making any   
sound, lips silently forming his name again and again, like some   
laser-image hologram doomed forever to repeat the same short   
sequence of words.

He stumbled toward the place in the road where she stood. But when   
he reached it, she was no longer there.

_Hallucination,_ he told himself. _A drug-induced hallucination._

He refused to accept any other explanation for what he had just   
seen.

Illya Kuryakin had never believed in ghosts.

Twin beams of light sliced through the darkness then, crossing the   
space where Anya's illusory image had been. Illya spun, and heard   
the sound of the car's engine approaching as the headlights caught   
him in their glare. He stood waiting, wondering if this were yet   
another illusion. If not, he hoped the driver would stop for him.

The car, a late model Cadillac, slowed its approach and pulled to   
a stop, wheels crunching the gravel under heavy tires. Illya moved   
gratefully to the driver's side, waited for the tinted window to   
slide down, and was suddenly staring down the barrel of a Russian-   
made automatic pistol.

"You are taking far too long to reach the city, my friend," said   
the unfamiliar man behind the gun. "Comrade Pavalanovka would like   
to see you again. Now."

  
* * *

  
The head of U.N.C.L.E.'s Intelligence and Communications Section   
Four in Honolulu was an attractive brunette named Mary Overton.   
Solo, having failed to conceal his surprise at her gender, was at   
least grateful that she'd pretended not to notice. She led him   
through the maze of corridors that was a smaller twin to New York's   
complex, and into the communications section, where Solo recognized   
a specially-rigged directional finder and triangulation grid.

"We should be able to isolate Mr. Kuryakin's communicator," she   
told Solo, and took a seat beside him in front of the apparatus.   
"Even if someone else is carrying it, this ought to lead us   
somewhere..."

"Yes, but how?" Solo wanted to know. "Illya's transceiver is the   
same as every communicator carried by every other U.N.C.L.E. agent   
in Hawaii."

She nodded, adjusting frequency controls as she spoke. "Yes. But   
this isn't New York, Mr. Solo. There are a given number of field   
agents operating in the islands at any given time, and we know   
where all of them are." She pressed a microphone switch, and spoke   
rapidly. "Beth, give me full range for starters, will you? G-80   
through 410."

The Plexiglas grid in front of them came suddenly to life: a map of   
the islands crisscrossed with grid lines and pulsing with small red   
lights, each representing an U.N.C.L.E. communicator.

"All right," Mary Overton said. "From the beginning. Bardona and   
Marston are in Hilo, so we can eliminate those." Two lights winked   
out on the island neighboring Oahu. "And these three are   
Chesterton, Eilers and Kim-Sung." Three more red points were   
extinguished.

Solo watched her work, hoping against hope that one of those lights   
would indeed be Illya. There was a greater likelihood, however,   
that his mind wanted to reject out of hand: the probability that a   
successful triangulation might only lead them to a dead man...

  
* * *

  
While Solo and Mary Overton were conducting their painstaking   
search, Illya was standing, facing Oleg Kugoshev Pavalanovka across   
a basement room that was barren of furniture. His KGB escorts had   
handcuffed his wrists in front of him, but though he was otherwise   
unrestrained, Illya knew there was nowhere to go. The only exit   
from the basement was a single door atop a steep flight of stairs,   
and the mansion above them had appeared well-guarded.

"I do hope you enjoyed your walk," Oleg gloated, still speaking in   
Russian. "I wanted you to have plenty of time to think along the   
way."

"You've changed none of your tactics at all, have you?" Illya said,   
reverting to his native tongue as well. "Tell me, which slow-   
acting poisons do you most prefer these days?"

  
The ghost of a smile curled Oleg's lips. "Is that what you   
thought, Illya Nickovetch? That I had poisoned you?" He laughed   
hardily, and his right hand reached to pull a customized Tokarev   
automatic from beneath his coat. "Ah, but of course you would   
assume that. No, my old friend. You were shot with a tranquilizer   
and a simple hallucinogen. Nothing more."

Illya glared, clearly not believing him.

"It is in fact the same hallucinogen," Oleg went on, "that I   
slipped to Anya and the pilot of your U.N.C.L.E. plane before they   
left Budapest."

New interest suddenly glimmered in Illya's eyes, followed closely   
by a realization. "It wasn't Thrush who fired on that plane at   
all," he said accusingly. "It was you."

"The point, my dear Illya, is that my drug saw to it your pilot   
_believed_ it to be Thrush. For my purposes, that is all that   
matters."

"Why?" Illya's voice was a half-whisper. "Why did you want to kill   
her?"

Toying with the gun, Oleg pulled and reloaded the oversized clip   
before replying. "For the same reason," he said, "that I wish to   
kill you. Surely she lived long enough to explain it all to you?"   
He worked the Tokarev's slide once, and then, almost as though it   
were an afterthought, leveled the gun at Illya. "If not, you may   
ask her to do so very shortly."

"You're making very little sense, Oleg," Illya said, ignoring the   
threat. "Perhaps you've been working too hard."

The spectral smile came again. "Not too hard to appreciate the   
proper touch of irony, I think. You see, _this_ gun _is_ loaded   
with poisoned darts. Six agonizing hours of death in every round.   
And this..." From another pocket, his left hand produced a second   
gun: Illya's Special. "This one contains your most unimaginative   
ammunition -- real bullets. A swift death, in perhaps no more than   
a few seconds." He balanced the two weapons, one in either hand.   
"Would you like to choose the way in which you are to die, Illya   
Nickovetch?"

His intended victim stared at him and said nothing. Oleg therefore   
made a pretense of choosing for himself. Dropping the Tokarev back   
into a pocket, he came within six feet of Illya, and raised the   
muzzle of the U.N.C.L.E. Special to eye-level.

"There's a certain poetic justice in killing a man with his own   
gun. Don't you agree, Illya?"

  
Kuryakin waited until the KGB agent had come as close as possible:   
until the Special was aimed at him, waiting only for Oleg to finish   
savoring the moment before it would fire. Then he pretended to   
collapse, going to one knee on the hard concrete floor. He saw the   
glint of triumph in Oleg's eyes -- the split second of   
overconfidence that was all he'd needed to gain precious seconds --   
and inches. With Oleg now less than four feet away, he lunged   
upward from his crouching position, cuffed hands aiming for the   
U.N.C.L.E. Special. The chain between his wrists caught the weapon   
and flipped it neatly out of Oleg's grasp. There was a crashing   
sound from somewhere, and the echo of voices as the gun hit the   
floor, and Illya dived after it, rolling, coming up again with the   
Special held in both hands just as Oleg's Tokarev had reappeared   
from its pocket and taken deadly aim. Oleg was grinning as his   
finger began to depress the trigger.

Illya shot him between the eyes.

Almost on top of the Special's un-silenced report, another shot   
caught Oleg from behind, and spun him sideways as he fell. At the   
top of the basement stairs, Napoleon Solo lowered his own   
U.N.C.L.E. Special and came rapidly down the concrete steps.

Tired, aching, and still more than a little ill from the effects of   
Oleg's drug, Illya sat heavily down on the damp floor and waited   
for him. "Just once," he said wearily when Solo had reached him,   
"I wish you'd come over the hill a little sooner."

Scowling, Solo stepped to the fallen Oleg, turned him over, and   
searched his pockets until he'd come up with the keys to the   
handcuffs and Illya's communicator pen. "If it hadn't been for   
this," he said, hefting the small transceiver, "I might not have   
come over the hill at all. Besides, I don't see what you have to   
complain about. You appeared to have matters well in hand. As   
usual."

Mary Overton and a small battalion of U.N.C.L.E. commandos appeared   
at the top of the stairs. "We've struck out up here," she   
announced, coming on down the stairs. "Looks like the rest of the   
KGB performed a disappearing act."

"All right," Solo told her. "I guess you can cancel the cavalry."

She smiled, then glanced from Oleg's body to Solo and finally to   
Illya, still sitting on the floor. "Mr. Kuryakin, are you all   
right?"

  
Illya nodded slowly. "I will be."

"We'll take you in to med section anyhow," Solo said, unlocking the   
handcuffs. "They'll want to be sure."

He was helping Illya up when Mary Overton suddenly snapped her   
fingers. "Oh, Mr. Solo -- I almost forgot. McGarrett from Five-0   
is outside: wants to talk to you. I think he's bent out of shape   
that U.N.C.L.E. didn't let him in on the action."

Solo grimaced. "Well I hate to bend him out of shape any more," he   
said, "but tell him I'll talk to him later."

"But Mr. Solo, he's--"

"Later, Mary."

Shrugging, she fell silent and followed the two New York agents up   
the stairs.

When they'd reached the door, Illya turned back to stare for a   
prolonged moment at Oleg Pavalanovka's body on the floor below.

Misunderstanding, Solo said, "It's all right, Illya. It's over."

The Russian agent looked at him for the briefest of moments. Then   
he turned his back on the basement room and went on through the   
door.

"Yes," he said quietly. "It is."   


+++ End +++

David McCallum fans may enjoy my prequel to his _Outer Limits_ episode, "The Forms of Things Unknown," now on AO3 here: <https://archiveofourown.org/works/20515391>

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>


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